A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.
Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.
To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.
You never see what you want to see, forever playing to the gallery.
What we call luck is the inner man externalized. We make things happen to us.
Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself.
Only a fool expects to be happy all the time.
There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity.
Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving.
The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past.
The quality of what is said inevitably influences the way in which it is said, however inexperienced the writer.
The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.
The greatest gift that Oxford gives her sons is, I truly believe, a genial irreverence toward learning, and from that irreverence love may spring.
The great book for you is the book that has the most to say to you at the moment when you are reading. I do not mean the book that is most instructive, but the book that feeds your spirit. And that depends on your age, your experience, your psychological and spiritual need.
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.